


iii. the night is dark.

by swoledor_clegainz



Series: arsan drabbles [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Master-at-Arms Clegane, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13763757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swoledor_clegainz/pseuds/swoledor_clegainz
Summary: Every few nights or so, Lady Arya is awakened.





	iii. the night is dark.

**iii. the night is dark**

Winter still lingered in the North, as it almost always did; elsewhere in the country the Spring had emerged, but the evergreens of the Wolfswood still held the frost, and the Steppes that surrounded Winterfell were a never ending stretch of snowpack. Night had long since settled upon Wintertown, and the castle itself slept, a great stone giant in a sea of white. Only the guardsmen stirred upon the battlements, though nowadays in the dawn of relative peace, there was little cause for caution. Yet their vigilance had not waned since the war, as always rats sought to invade the den of wolves. 

In the dark and homely chambers above the Great Keep, Arya slept soundly at her husband's side, curled beneath furs of sable and wolf. The hearth had died down to embers, glowing softly in the shadows; yet she needed no warmth that Sandor could not give her.

It always happened in the small hours, when the night was the darkest and the silence the heaviest. 

" _No,_ " It began quietly, only a whispered plea. " _Please, no..._ " 

Then came the sweating, the trembling, the errant tossing and turning. It woke her slowly, and then all at once. 

" _Please,_ " he rasped, chest heaving. " _Father, please...Mother..._ " He thrashed violently, little whimpers escaping his lips. " _Help me. I'm burned. Help me...someone. Help me..._ " 

"Sandor," she whispered, sitting up and grasping his shoulder. 

" _No. No. Don't...don't...help me, please, help me -_ " He was crying. 

"There," she wound her arms around him, hushing his cries. " _There...it's alright_ ," 

" _Th...the blackwater...on fire...get away...they're charging again, lad...get away..._ " His fist clenched. " _Get away from there, get away NOW -_ " His eyes flew open, and he sat up, bare chest heaving violently. 

" _Sweetling,_ " she breathed, burying her face into his back. "It's me. It's me...shhhh...it's  _me_..." 

"Arya," he murmured, breathing labored. She felt him slowly lie back and relax against her, and stroked his hair, pressing her lips to his temple again and again. "Arya..." His eyes were confused and searching.

"It's alright," she whispered. "It's alright now." 

" _Yes,_ " he croaked. "Yes..." His arms slid around her. 

She knew the clash of swords and screams never left his ears. She saw it in his eyes as she saw herself, saw it plague him as he trained the young ones in the yard, saw it in the sad looks he gave the boys - too green, too small, yet already raring for war and the glory it would bring. They did not know. Could not know. 

He had once told her of the dream, and how it haunted his steps. Of how he walked a sprawling field of yellow in his youth, but found the earth disappeared from beneath his feet - and a great black spectre of a dog, who opened its maw and swallowed him in a rush of fire and a torrent of blood. Smoldering, eager, hungry flames always reaching for him like spindly fingers, turning from yellow to orange to green. He would try to run, but a hundred hands would grasp his legs, closing around him, never to escape, and press him into the flames. He would call to his mother, and to his father; but they were already dead, a pile of ash and bone, sifting through his hands like sand in the wind. 

He dreamed he saw a great wave of broken ships and wildfire, climbing swiftly over the Blackwater and the green hills of the Crownlands. He stood on the brink, upon the battlements of the Mud Gate, unable to move or speak. 

He dreamed of trumpets and charges and the clamor of swords, of rain and blood and bodies piled before a gate - and a squire, no more than ten, ran down by a great stag alight in flame. 

So large and powerful a man, the unstoppable force of nature that he was, completely and utterly vulnerable, naked and powerless. It was the deepest, darkest side of him, hidden behind stone walls carefully stacked by isolation and mortared by years of repression; walls that only Arya had broken, and she now made whole again. 

He raised a large hand and cupped her face, laying his forehead against hers as his breathing settled.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. 

"Don't be," she whispered back. 

She stroked his hair until he fell asleep once more. 

**Author's Note:**

> Note: these drabbles are not in chronological order.


End file.
